~ Reflections of a pastor…

Suffering as necessary process…(part 3)

If you had told me 10 years ago when Beck and I were married that I would one day pastor a church in Happy Valley, not part of my original tradition I would never believed you. If you had told me in the midst of everything I was going through that I would pastor again, I would never have believed you. Suffering is like that. It sucks our faith dry. Not our faith in our faith but our faith in the God who leads us and guides us!

Paul puts it this way, “All things will work together for the good of those who love him and have been called according to his purposes”. At the time I was going through what I went through I would have quite happily spat in the face of this text. However, looking back God was right!

The reality of suffering and God’s purposes is this: Sometimes we simply just don’t know why and we might never know why.

In weakness we find ourselves in the perfect position for God to act. Not only that we find that God is at work in the midst of our suffering and that in the end we can be confident that he is at work in all things for good..

And yet Paul reminds us how in the midst of suffering, whatever the source of suffering, God is not only at work through us he is at work in us. Our religion, our faith, is more than what we do on the outside. God is equally at work in us as he is through us. He is just as concerned with the world around us as he in the world within us.

When I fell apart at the beach that night I finally let go. I let go because I had to. God forced my hand. I had been holding on to the call so tightly that I was killing it. Don’t get me wrong, I thought I was doing the right thing. Yes God had called me to be a pastor however, I took over…and God let me do it because he knew for me it was the only way he could get me out of the way of me!

Walter Brueggerman is an Old Testament writer, a prophet almost. Some years ago I was reading his book on the Psalms and he talked about the way in which God worked in the life of Israel as depicted in the Psalms. It is a method we find here in Romans 8 as well.

God works from Orientation – the place where we think everything is going well. We are comfortable; to disorientation.

Disorientation is the place of suffering. This suffering can take the form of something we endure, as I did, for the betterment of our own self. Then there is the suffering we endure for the sake of another person. Someone we love. We lay down our life so that another might live. In times of disorientation we can often become disillusioned with God. However, what we read in our text this morning is that in these times of disorientation God is at work in us through the Holy Spirit, praying through us.

This leads us to re-orientation. Re-orientation to God is a place in which we get out of the way of our self.

So let me ask you; what do you bring to these few verses this morning? Are you feeling weak and vulnerable? Do you feel weighed down by the burden of sin and death? Perhaps you are struggling to see how God is at work for “the good”. Let me encourage you. Don’t look to the left, don’t look to the right. You are right where you need to be, in God’s hands! Furthermore, God is at work in you and through you. When your mouth is silent your heart is praying.

About Mark Stevens

Mark is pastor of the Happy Valley Church of Christ in Adelaide, South Australia. He holds a Master of Ministry from Tabor College Adelaide. The Parson's Patch is a collection of musings on the pastoral vocation, coffee (humour), gardening and other topics of interest! Mark reviews books for Zondervan, IVP, Kregel Academic and Logos Bible Software.

Endorsement

"I am happy to commend Mark Stevens' fine blog which provides resources and discussion on a panoply of things crucial to Christian ministry in the 21rst century. But quite apart from the resources, Mark evinces a mind for what really matters when it comes to the serious study of God's Word--- highly recommended. "